The writer is director of the Turkey programme at the Middle East Institute and author of ‘Erdo?an’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria’
Just days before Turkey’s main opposition party held Sunday’s presidential primary, Ekrem ?mamo?lu, Istanbul’s mayor and President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an’s leading political rival, was arrested pending trial on corruption charges and removed from office. ?mamo?lu’s arrest has sparked Turkey’s biggest protests in over a decade, but there is far more at stake than the fate of one opposition mayor.
For the university students at the forefront, the government has crossed the line separating Turkey’s competitive authoritarian system from a Russian-style autocracy. And they are furious, not just at Erdo?an, but also at Europe’s leaders. “Where is the EU, always preaching democracy and human rights, while our future is being stolen, and we’re being beaten for defending it?” a student protesting in Istanbul asked me.